


Storm Break

by InnerSpectrum



Series: February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29178327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: On a mid-winter day two years ago he was unemployed, alone and despondent. He had felt he had nothing to stay around for in this world. He was taking one last walk around London before he killed himself that night, unable to bear another day.Instead he ran into an old friend and met a new one that very afternoon.It was exactly two years ago to the day that Dr. John Watson met Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, and found a reason to stay.A reason that suddenly leapt from his life several weeks ago.What can make him stay now?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138172
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: February 2021 Johnlock prompt challenge from ohlooktheresabee





	Storm Break

**Author's Note:**

> For the February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge from ohlooktheresabee. Prompt: Storm

He knew he should not be here, again, but he could not seem to stop himself.

A storm was brewing... Indigo.

It had been dreary outside for days. Endless hues of smoke that morphed into shades of charcoal. It was to the point he only differentiated between the endless chiaroscuro of day from night by the accompanying sounds.

A storm was brewing, and he wondered... Alabaster.

The occasional auditory that broke through. Voices speaking, yelling, urging, whispering, pleading, crying… Some to which he supposed he gave the appropriate responses before the much too loud silence returned. It mattered not to him for like the dull muted skies, all sound was a subdued susurrus barely acknowledged. 

A storm was brewing, and he wondered which would break first... Verdigris.

The familiar jagged peaks of skyline above his head was as hidden as the valley of pavement below his feet in an otherworldly ombre of greyness in the low-lying early morning fog. He held on to the representation of the one thing that saved him from the edge two years ago and the thing that takes him to it again.

A storm was brewing, and he wondered which would break first: the storm or him... Scarlet

It was early in the morning. London had not quite awakened into her hustle and bustle. No one was around. He sat and looked down on the last place he saw color: Indigo. Alabaster. Verdigris. Scarlet.

Not that it mattered as he pulled a scarf out of his pocket, wrapped it tenderly around his neck and tucked it inside his jacket; inside his shirt, its fringes tickled his chest. He imagined it as fingers tracing over his heart. 

He remembered those fingers; _his_ fingers.

The long pale fingers and wrist in the indigo coat sleeve that slipped from his grasp unto the pavement.

He remembered how his eyes travelled up the sleeve of the indigo great coat, to the pulled-up collar that framed sharp cheekbones in a complexion gone a deathly alabaster.

The complexion that somehow paled even more and made the crystalline verdigris eyes stand out.

The verdigris eyes that now stared into nothing, contrasted by a halo of dark curls and a nimbus of the scarlet life that surrounded his head.

He had closed his eyes to shut out the sight and when he opened them again the world had become a grey monotone. He knew even then and there that all color had gone from his life. It left with the life of the erstwhile owner of the scarf now wrapped around his own neck who had both saved him from the edge and brought him to it.

On a mid-winter day two years ago he was unemployed, alone and despondent. He had felt he had nothing to stay around for in this world. He was taking one last walk around London before he killed himself that night, unable to bear another day.

Instead he ran into an old friend and met a new one that very afternoon.

It was exactly two years ago to the day that Dr. John Watson met Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes, and found a reason to stay.

A reason that suddenly leapt from his life several weeks ago.

_I stayed for you. Was I not good enough for you to stay for me?_

John pulled a gun from his pocket.

It was not the same gun he had planned to use that day two years ago. That gun disappeared the night John realized that he would not only live for Sherlock Holmes but would kill for him too. This replacement, of the same make and model, had mysteriously appeared in his locked gun safe at Baker Street a few days later; an unacknowledged thank you from Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft. A man John was just beginning to understand the level of power wielded then.

John looked up at the looming ash skies and threatening pewter clouds. He knew: _Any minute now._

John stretched out on the pavement. The pavement where _he_ had lain.

He put the gun to his temple, thumbed off the safety and took a breath.

_My final inh…._

“NOOO!”

John blinked, years of training made him flick back on the safety by reflex, as he heard running footsteps and the voice of the dead.

“John NO!”

The gun was snatched from his hand and tossed away He felt his body pulled from the pavement.

_No! It can’t be! I’m imagining this… He’s…_

John closed his eyes tight, but it didn’t stop the tickle of soft hair against his cheek. The familiar scent of a ridiculously expensive shampoo. The feel of strong desperate arms holding him tight. The sound of a broken baritone voice that urgently, tearfully, desperately whispered words of apology, of hope, of love.

“John? You’re not speaking! Did you take something? Oh God, please, no! John, say something!”

John opened his eyes and stared into eyes that frantically searched his, but something was not right, everything was still grey.

Disbelief trembled John’s voice, “S-S-Sh-Sherlock?”

“Yes, John! It’s me. I’m not dead. I’m here! John, I’m _here_!” Sherlock grabbed his shoulders harshly as though to help prove the veracity of his presence.

Within the next half-hour John will have explanations and more apologies.

Within two hours Sherlock will be wearing the engagement ring John had secretly purchased through his ex-sister-in-law and had met with her to pick it up. It was the same day John and Sherlock had learned about the kidnapping of the Bruhl children. The day and the days after when everything went to hell and John’s life went grey.

For now, John still sat on the pavement in stunned disbelief.

_Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth._

John slowly, oh so slowly, and with quivering fingers to do something he has never done before. He reaches up with fear and trepidation that this vision will dissipate, but he must do this to know it is real.

And the moment his cold fingers touch the warm flesh of Sherlock’s face both gasp from the contact.

Color returns to John’s life in splendid coda as he finds himself once again impaled by crystalline verdigris eyes.

“Oh my God! Sherlock!”

“Yes, John! Yes!”

The storm and John finally break.

Joyous tears stream down John’s face along with the pouring rain as they rise from the pavement. Sherlock pulls John into his arms. John wraps his arms tightly around Sherlock in a crushing hold until the relieved sobs that wreck his body subside.

A large umbrella opens over them as an Iceman appears beside them; getting partially wet as he turns away from the reunited men.

Neither John, nor Sherlock notice as John takes the blue scarf from around his neck, returns it to the neck it belongs and uses it to pull Sherlock closer as they finally kiss.


End file.
